Save me
by planet p
Summary: Jeannie needs saving.


**Save me **by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _Stargate: Atlantis_ or any of its characters.

* * *

Jeannie McKay's husband was dead, shot in a robbery gone bad. The other women whose children Madison played with sad how sorry they were, and how unfortunate it had been. They looked at her differently, as though maybe it had been her who'd been shot instead of her husband, or maybe they'd both been shot, only, she'd survived, and Caleb hadn't.

She hated robberies then, she even hated movies about them.

Pointless, stupid robberies plagued her dreams. Because of that robbery, Madison no longer had a father, and she no longer had a husband, confidante, or lover.

Heck, Rodney no longer had a brother-in-law. Even that had the capacity to upset her these days!

It got to the point that she thought that maybe she was going nuts. That was when she found Madison a sitter, and got the Hell out of the house.

She needed something else to think about, afraid she'd hurt Mad, damage her somehow, or infect her with her madness.

She landed a job with law enforcement, as a computer tech. She liked it most when she got to stretch her legs, do something dangerous, and possibly stupid. Rodney did the same everyday, so why couldn't she?

In a dark recess of her mind, she reminded herself that Rodney wasn't a parent – and she was!

She pushed it away and grabbed for her coffee before it got cold, or, similarly, a doughnut before they were all gone. Sometimes, there was no coffee or doughnut, so she grabbed a pen or pencil and chewed on that.

* * *

Jeannie dropped the pencil she'd been chewing on the end of, and stood, stretching. It was late, and dark outside. It was time to go home, she decided.

In truth, she'd been due home hours ago.

She thought of Caleb, of her empty bed. Empty, except for her.

She didn't want to go home anymore. She looked down at her chair, and forced herself to walk away.

Madison needed her.

It was winter, and by half past five it was dark outside already. She walked to her car, pretending not to notice the cold.

Caleb was cold, all alone in the ground.

She tried not to cry, but the cold was making her eyes water, on top of everything else. She was as alone as Caleb, as trapped as he was, above the ground!

The tears swilled around in her eyes as she walked, and she dared them not to spill out, and prayed that they wouldn't.

If someone saw, then she would really start crying, and she wouldn't be able to stop. They'd think she'd gone mad, which would only confirm her suspicions.

She found that her car wasn't where she'd left it. Panic washed over her, before she remembered that construction was being done on this particular part of parking lot – of course she hadn't left her car _here_!

That had been last week.

She marched away, annoyance eating at her. She couldn't even remember where she'd parked her own car, for goodness sakes!

A metallic bang frightened her, but it was only the sound of a metal can falling and rolling by. She continued in the direction of the stairwell, pointedly keeping her gaze from straying toward the out-of-service elevator in case she had the urge to curse it. "Stupid thing!" she cursed anyway, in her 'crappy busted machines' voice, and winced.

She changed direction, and headed for the ramp, which cars would normally take. She was afraid that if she got too near to the elevator she'd run over and start kicking it, and that her boss wouldn't like that when he saw it on surveillance feed.

* * *

Todd felt uncomfortable with his human prosthetics, but he also knew it was a necessary precaution. It was either uncomfortable, or dead. He personally preferred uncomfortable.

He tried to take his mind off the annoyingness by applying it to something else, such as the lottery. He didn't understand the purpose of the little balls they used to affix the numbers to, nor the entire process of drawing the balls out of the apparatus. It would have been much more efficient just allowing a computer to randomly choose the numbers, after all.

Though, he supposed, that wouldn't have encouraged much enthusiasm in the 'viewers at home,' and it was all about the audience ratings, wasn't it?

Next, he contemplated something he'd heard about called a 'zoo.' It all sounded very strange to him, and he didn't think that the humans would like if Wraith captured them and kept them captive merely to watch them go about their stunted lives.

Though, then again, there was a dilemma there, too, because he wondered, fairly, if some of the starving ones would mind, as long as they were being fed and housed.

Food and shelter were both basic and powerful things.

He had to admit, the thought of a human zoo was somewhat amusing to him, though he would be sure to avoid recruiting Rodney McKay into his zoo as his feeding habits were merely too picky and frustrating.

* * *

Jeannie couldn't remember where she'd parked her car. She'd get home, and Madison would be asleep, or so upset that she'd pretend to be asleep.

She started to cry, then stopped and brushed her tears away, hating herself for crying. Then she thought that her car had been carjacked, and she started crying again.

She was so pathetic and stupid.

Madison had every reason to hate her. She could never make up for what Madison had lost, for Caleb. Maybe Caleb even hated her, for being such a crappy mother after he'd died.

She couldn't stop crying, and she couldn't find her car anywhere. She turned on the spot half a dozen times, feeling more and more useless with each turn, and then stalked to the edge of the multistorey parking complex for some air.

She stood at the edge, the fronts of her shoes touching the partition, and stared over the edge at the lights and the streets and the other buildings. The air was cold at the edge, and she shivered, and peered more intently at the lights, but her tears blurred even that.

She bent her head and the tears ran out of her eyes and rocketed to the ground from four storeys up. She wondered if it would hurt, if they'd been alive.

It would be quick, of that she was sure.

She shuffled closer to the edge, but her shoes were already up against the partition. Her face felt cold, soaked with tears and battered by cold air and wind.

She stepped over the partition, and peered fully over the edge, squinting down at the ground, mentally calculating variables.

Would it hurt if she stepped over the edge? she wondered.

Maybe she should take the stairwell, climb up higher, so that when she stepped and fell, she would no longer be recognisable. Maybe then Madison could pretend she'd just gone away for a while.

She shuffled closer to the edge, so that the tips of her shoes were sticking over the edge. She was too tired to turn around and step over the partition again, then walk all the way across the parking lot to the stairwell, and climb several flights of stairs.

The wind nudged her, reminding her of the height, and she wondered if it was colder where she was compared to down there, on the street. She was very cold.

* * *

Todd resisted the urge to scratch his neck, and craned his neck to look up at the sky.

He frowned, seeing a small form standing close to the edge of the parking structure he was passing, wondering if it was real, or a prank – just a dummy.

He'd almost dismissed it as just a piece of wood, or a whole lot of pieces of wood tied together – or a stupid prank – when he caught sight of a glimmer, and decided that it _was_ a person. It had eyes!

Maybe the person was looking for their car, he thought. It was, after all, a parking structure, where people regularly parked their cars, vans or motorcycles.

Then he saw the almost imperceptible shuffle closer to the edge.

Even if the person was looking for their car, which he'd started to seriously doubt, they were cutting it a bit close, weren't they?

Annoyed, for the second time that night, at the prosthetics, he ignored them the best he could and pushed out his senses as best he could.

It was a female, he guessed.

He frowned, wondering what reason the human female could have to want to kill herself, though, offhand, he couldn't think of any reason that would be reason _enough_.

Life wasn't a toy, it was special. It was not to be given or taken with flippancy, but respected.

_The choice is that of herself_, he reminded himself. _You, after all, would grow wearisome of one who would seek to infringe upon your own wishes._

He began walking again, and was ready to pick up his pace, when he realised that something about _this_ human seemed familiar to him. The realisation annoyed him, as though he'd identified the realisation, he could not identify the reason to go along with it, nor the familiarity which he felt toward this human female.

A faint rhythmic beeping drifted through the air toward him. He turned, faintly alarmed, and searched for the source of the sound, until he realised that the sound was not to be found in his surrounds, but in his memories.

A dying girl, he thought, pondering the significance of one dying child when there were so many more where she had come from.

A dying human girl. He'd fed on her father, he recalled suddenly. He'd died, afterward, as a consequence of the feeding; then the girl had died.

The human scientist, Dr. Rodney McKay, and his sister had been kidnapped by the girl's father to try and help her to survive, to correct the mistakes in the programming of the nanites he'd injected her with, which had begun killing her, rather than helping her, though the siblings had been unable to willingly co-operate, and McKay's sister had been injected with the same nanites that had been given to the girl as incentive.

McKay had failed, and, as a last attempt to save his sister, he'd called in the enemy.

In the end, he had saved McKay's sister, Todd recalled, and he'd been transported back to the Pegasus Galaxy.

He frowned, and lifted his face up to the sky, directing his gaze to the female standing at the edge of the building, the fronts of her shoes sticking over into thin air.

_McKay's sister_, he thought.

* * *

Jeannie sniffed, wiping her nose on her sleeve near the back of her hand. She didn't want to die, really, but she'd only ruin Madison's life if she lived, she realised. With her mother as a constant reminder, Madison would never be able to move on from her father's death; she'd never make friends, never get a boyfriend, never get married, or have kids of her own, because her mother would always be there, ready to ruin everything for her.

She sniffed, and closed her eyes.

_Mommy loves you, Madison._

* * *

She shrieked, kicking out her legs as she was swiftly lifted off her feet and dragged back from the edge of the building. A shoe came dislodged from her foot and flew into the air, then plummeted down, and out of sight to the ground below.

Jeannie didn't hear it hit over the sound of her heart beating madly in her chest. She couldn't touch the ground! Someone had picked her up and she could touch the ground!

Just one second longer, and she would have been with Caleb again. He would have forgiven her, she knew he would have!

She scratched and kicked furiously, struggling to break free of her saviour's hold.

"You will desist, Miss McKay!" a deep voice growled. "You are greatly valuable; you will not be allowed to discard your life!"

Jeannie stopped struggling, utterly terrified. She recognised that voice – it was a Wraith's voice. "What do you want?" she whispered, her voice shaking despite her best efforts. She kept thinking of that _hand_ – touching her!

There was a Wraith, on Earth!

How many more were there? Were they invading?

"As I have previously stated, you will not affect any further effort in the direction of an attempt toward the stopping of your life, Miss McKay!" the voice growled.

"Who told you my name?" Jeannie gasped, then realised that by asking just such a question, she'd effectively answered in the affirmative that it was indeed so. Panicking would help nobody, she reminded herself, least of all Madison, and forced herself to inject some level-headedness and authority into her voice. "Who told you that was my name?" she demanded, feeling about cautiously with a foot in case she found another foot, or shoe, that was not her own, on which to stomp and break from her captor's hold. Hopefully, then, she'd be able to make a break for it and, with a bit of luck, she'd get away.

"I believe that that is your brother's name, Miss McKay," the voice answered, "and, as you are his sister, I assume, therefore, that it is also yours."

"If you've hurt Meredith, I swear, I'll kill you!" Jeannie bellowed heatedly.

"I am not aware as to whom you are referring, Miss McKay," the voice replied in an even growl, "so I believe that I will reserve the right to remain without comment as to minimise further incriminating myself."

Jeannie howled, and began kicking her legs furiously, wriggling to get free. Then, suddenly, she was placed back down on her feet. She stumbled sideways shortly at the loss of one shoe, but caught her balance and whipped around, balling her hands up into fists quickly and pounding them upon the man's chest with intent to hurt or injure. "I don't care if you're a monster!" she screamed. "You killed my brother, and now I'm going to kill you!"

The man easily caught her wrists in his hands and held them steady, despite her protests.

For some reason, he looked like a normal person, even though it was dark, and Jeannie couldn't be sure.

"Curiously," the man responded in a low, collected growl, "I do not recall the incident of which you speak. I wonder, then, does that make it not real?"

Jeannie struggled harder, aiming a kick for the man's leg, then drawing forward and biting down hard into his arm.

The man frowned. "I do not believe that your efforts will be fruitful, nor that they are at all productive. I believe that your efforts would be best spent conserving your energies for when they are needed most."

"Let go of me, you lunatic!" Jeannie shouted at him, stomping on his foot hard.

He growled. "I do not wish to harm you, Miss McKay. Nor do I, at present, harbour a particular desire to harm your brother, Dr. McKay."

"I'll kill you, you-" Jeannie's rant abruptly ended, and she sucked in a deep breath. "Meredith's alive?" she gasped.

"I suppose so," the man conceded.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Jeannie hollered, eyes gleaming darkly.

"I do not know of this Meredith person that you speak of, so, naturally, I am not able to vouch for his or her wellbeing at this point," the man responded, annoyed.

"Meredith McKay!" Jeannie screamed at him. "Dr. Meredith McKay! My brother, you maniac!"

"I do believe that you are mistaken, Miss McKay. I was informed that the name of your brother was Rodney. Unless you have another brother of whom I am not aware and is a doctor?"

Jeannie screamed, angry, and attempted, unsuccessfully, to stomp on his foot again. "What are you doing on Earth? How did you get here? Who sent you? How many people have you slaughtered?" she ranted loudly.

"That is my business, Miss McKay," the man answered simply.

"I demand to know your name!" Jeannie hollered at him at the top of her voice.

"The name that your people have bestowed upon me in order to better communicate amongst themselves regarding myself is Todd."

"I demand that you release me at once, sir!" Jeannie growled angrily.

"I think not, Miss McKay," Todd told her. "I think, that, in the interest of your continued safety, I shall escort you to a suitable mode of conveyance, whereupon, I shall direct such transport toward a place of preparation of food, and see to it that you are well fed."

"YOU CRAZY PERSON!" Jeannie positively screeched. "I will go with you to no such place, or thing!"

Todd did not reply, except to step forward swiftly and pick her up off the ground and carry her off, kicking and punching and screaming for help.

* * *

As they were passing through one of the lower parking lots, a woman walked out of the stairwell and stared at them, eyes going wide.

"HELP!" Jeannie shrieked.

"Good evening," Todd greeted, with not a trace of his earlier growl.

"What-" the woman began, almost too scared to ask.

"It is a… fantasy of hers," Todd explained, and the woman peered dubiously at Jeannie, kicking and hollering for the woman not to listen to him and to, for pity's sake, help me.

The woman blushed, and bobbed her head and hurried away, toward her car.

Jeannie growled and punched Todd's back. "Put me down! I can walk!" she shrieked.

"You may walk away, and to the edge," Todd replied, his earlier growl present once more. "I am not as gullible as you might think, Miss McKay."

"You're paranoid! That's what you are! Do you know that? You're a paranoid lunatic!" came Jeannie's angry reply.

"I see. That is what I am," Todd merely responded, with light interest, then put her on her feet. "You shall not attempt to flee!" he told her in a deep growl.

"I'm not hungry!" she bellowed, getting up close to him.

"I think that you are," Todd replied dismissively.

Jeannie laughed sarcastically.

"You will direct me to your… vehicle…" Todd told her, "and we shall be finding this house of food preparation, and then you shall eat."

"I'm not paying!" Jeannie shouted, mildly satisfied with her comeback.

"That is fine. I possess human currency."

"You robbed a bank?" Jeannie hollered, then fell silent, thinking of Caleb. She'd said the 'rob' word when she'd promised herself that she wouldn't.

Todd placed his hand around her wrist and pulled her after him. "The way to your vehicle, Miss?"

Hobbling after him with one shoes missing, Jeannie dug around in her handbag and pulled out her car key, shoving it at him.

He frowned at the key.

Jeannie grabbed it back off him forcefully and pressed the button. A car nearby gave a sharp beeping sound and its lights flashed. So that's where she'd parked it! she thought irritably.

Todd removed the keys from her care and ferried her over to the car. He would be driving, she would be the passenger watching for foot traffic and other cars.

* * *

Jeannie sat morosely in KFC, glaring at her drink, and chewing on a salted chip disgustedly.

Todd sat opposite her, and reached across the table for a chip and put it in his mouth.

Jeannie wanted to laugh in his face. A Wraith eating food!

"No more of this," Todd declared, pushing the chips away to the far side of the table and pushing her chicken burger closer. "This one."

"You eat it!" Jeannie retorted, leaning over to pick another chip out of the packet.

Todd tried to grab it off her, but she stuck it in her mouth before he had the chance. He eyed the packet with distain, and Jeannie dived for it and placed it safely in her lap, grinning at her little victory.

Todd looked out the window, ignoring her.

Jeannie kicked him under the table and pushed the Coke toward him with a significant nod.

"I think not," Todd told her, without looking away from the window.

"You're scared of the Coke?" Jeannie laughed.

Todd turned away from the window stiffly, and glared at her, then the Coke. "I am not frightened by yourself, or by anything by the name of 'Coke,'" he told her. "I did not come here seeking sustenance, I came here so that I would be able to purchase sustenance for yourself."

Jeannie snorted. "Stop saying that word!" she told him, amused.

"I do not understand which word that you refer to? Which word is it, precisely, Miss McKay, that you take objection to?"

"'Sustenance!'" Jeannie mouthed, throwing a chip at him.

"Sustenance is not a plaything, Miss McKay!" he reprimanded, only to have another chip thrown at him. "You will desist!" he ordered.

"Or what?" Jeannie laughed. "You're gonna _growl_ at me?"

Todd ground his teeth, then remembered that he did not want to damage the 'human' teeth that he was wearing, and threw her a horrible glare.

"My Coke can do better than that!" Jeannie told him, picking up the medium-sized cup of Coke.

A member of staff, who'd been wiping down tables, hurried over to ask if everything was alright.

Jeannie smiled at her sweetly and confirmed that it was, shooting an identical sweet smile across the table to Todd.

"Lucky break," she hissed sweetly at him, and sipped her Coke throw the straw.

* * *

"I can drive myself home just fine, thanks!" Jeannie told him sweetly, in the parking lot, as they stopped at her car, and she pushed him away from her. "Rather not have you suck the life out of my neighbours, or Meredith's cat, Wrigleys."

"Cat?" Todd narrowed his eyes. "This is a small, much furry creature. I am not interested in small."

Jeannie cackled with laughter, snatching the car keys from him. "My _neighbours_ are not small and furry!" she told him.

Todd shrugged. "You may drive," he said, and walked around the car.

Jeannie huffed loudly. There was no way she was letting him meet Madison!

* * *

"You are a mother?" Todd asked, as she reached for the dial to turn the radio on.

She switched it on and straightened in her chair without replying.

Todd didn't ask again.

They listened to the radio and the sounds of angry, impatient drivers.

* * *

Jeannie pulled her car up in front of her house and waited for Todd get out before doing the same herself and locking up behind her.

She stood around for a long moment, before scowling and stomping away, toward her house.

Todd stayed by the car.

As she turned back, at the front door, Jeannie noticed that he'd wandered away along the footpath, and hoped that he didn't sneak back and bring his bad intentions with him.

She opened the door and scrambled inside and locked the door carefully, then stood leant against it for a long moment, trying to decide whether to place a call to the SGC or not, then decided that – Damn it! – she would do so right away, as soon as she'd been up to see Mad.

She found the sitter in the lounge room, sitting at the sofa, watching television. Madison had been put to bed, the sitter told her, and she nodded and moved out of the room.

Reaching Madison's room, she pushed the door open slowly and slipped inside. Madison was soundly asleep, just as the sitter had said.

She sat down on the side of Madison's bed and wanted to cry. She'd almost left her tonight – for good – and, in her mind, there were no excuses for that.

She leant over and made sure that the little girl was properly tucked in, and watched her sleeping daughter for a long while.

She was so tired.

She tried to keep her eyes from closing as she heard the sitter's car start up outside and drive away – she needed to chain the door – but she was too tired.

She lay down on the bed beside her daughter and finally allowed her eyes to close. Moments later, she was asleep.

* * *

Todd watched the car that was not Jeannie's drive away and disappear out of sight at the end of the street with a sharp right turn.

Jeannie was asleep, with her daughter.

It was a good thing, he decided, that he'd stopped Jeannie tonight. Human children seemed to need their parents, from what he'd observed. He wondered, for a moment, what it would have been like to have been a child, though it was a pointless, fanciful thought.

For Rodney McKay's sake, he was pleased that he'd intervened. He did not believe that the scientist would have taken well to the loss of his sister.

Jeannie McKay, herself, was another matter. He could not, knowing of her intellect, have rationally allowed her to end of her own life. An instance may have come up in the future where she was needed by someone other than just her daughter, and, in that instance, if he had not acted, the world would have been deprived.

As a scientist himself, he was not fond of the idea. Warriors and soldiers dispatched of their broken, tormented lives. Jeannie McKay was not a soldier, her life was not as broken as she thought. She had her offspring, her kind, her planet. She would live on another day.

The sounds of sirens pulled him from his thoughts, reminding him that he was a fugitive, and that he'd escaped from a top-secret high-level-security facility. It would do good to make himself scarce, even in his human disguise.

He took a last look at the house of Jeannie McKay, and walked away, into the darkness.

* * *

_Lame! Thanks for reading! :-)_

_P.S.: There didn't appear to be anything like this, so I thought I'd write something. That is her husband's name, right? Are they married or engaged? Oops!_


End file.
